A/N: Before I started to post new chapters to this story I went over my previous uploads and saw that my writing style now differed from what I wrote back when I uploaded the first two chapters. The logical thing now was to edit the chapters, hopefully without changing the content too much, to better suit my current style of writing as to not create a rift between old and new as well as to address a few issues mentioned in the reviews.
Now that this is out of the way: HAVE FUN READING AND PLEASE REVIEW!
Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Seed / Destiny, Gundam 00 or Halo. I don't own the EHG-X1 Courage, EHG-X2 Honor, EHG-X3 Loyalty they are used with permission from Tellemicus Sundance.
Chapter I: Descending
24. January C.E. 71
Heliopolis
They were sitting on the couch in Kiras room watching an old martial arts movie. The pink haired girl next to him had fallen asleep somewhere throughout the first half of the movie, now resting her head on his shoulder. How she could fall asleep during such a movie was lost on the brunette whose shoulder the girl in question used as a pillow.
Her cousin had decided to fall asleep on his bed instead of the one she occupied in the guest room, her read hair had long fallen over her face.
They had been good friends since their time on the moon. This time was Lacus' and Luna's last visit before Lacus was scheduled to go on the memorial trip to Junius 7. Her departure was already set for tomorrow, while Luna would stay a few days longer.
Kira just hoped that the war between the Earth Alliance and ZAFT would be over soon, so that they could spend more time together.
As the movie continued he drifted of into the dream world as well.
24. January C.E. 71
Secret Jupiter research, development and construction facility
A woman with purple hair and eyes walked down the hallway towards the command room. Her hair was hanging over her medium sized breasts and got shorter to about shoulder length. She wore a uniform consisting of white pants, a white zip-up shirt with orange shoulders and a jacked that ended just below her chest of the same color. The grey boots were mostly concealed by the legs of the pants.
All the while she was reading something on the PDA in her hands.
They had finally succeeded in building their own Hyperdrive by implanting some of the stabilizers they copied from the designs of the GN-drives they had acquired form their allies. Now they could travel between Jupiter and Earth in a few seconds rather than being stuck on a spaceship for twelve weeks. Maybe she could get their commander to grant her and John some shore leave so they could see what this Earth looked like. And smell some fresh air for the first time.
The space station they were had everything one could desire. A medium sized garden, an observatory dome to watch the stars and an entertainment hall with pretty much every form of entertainment one could think of, not to mention the enormous fitness area.
She arrived at the command room about the same time as John. John was 2,30 meters tall, while she was only 1,65 meters, had brown eyes, short brown hair and was about as muscular as a man could get or probably even more. He wore a uniform of the same design as her but with dark green shoulders on his shirt and a jacket of the same color. They looked at each other shortly, nodded and then entered the command room together.
"John, Cortana." their commander greeted them as the door closed behind them.
Both of them greeted him with a salute
"We just got word that the testing of the Flux' Hyperdrive was successful. Right this moment the supplies are being loaded and the final preparations for its departure are underway."
"Our mission?" John asked bluntly.
"Right. You, Cortana and Lt. Col. Tsubasa are to go aboard and join the crew of the Ptolemaios in the debris belt."
"So where is he?" Cortana asked.
"He and the other three pilots are already aboard and are making final adjustments to their machines."
"Understood." John replied. "What are we to do once we get there?"
"You and Cortana are to go to Heliopolis on your own and check on occurrence of unusually high quantum brainwaves." The commander concluded.
25. January C.E. 71
Heliopolis, Morgenroete, Professor Kato's Laboratory
"You're late." Sai, a boy of the same age as Kira, although a few centimeters taller, with short, blond hair and brown eyes behind lightly yellow shaded glasses, greeted him as he walked through the door with Luna right behind him.
"Come on, let him at least say a proper goodbye to his girlfriend. " Tolle said teasingly, earning a glare from Luna.
"Our relationship isn't like that, we're simply friends." Kira replied with a sigh, clearly annoyed.
"And who is the friend you brought today?" Miriallia, a girl with brown hair a little bit longer than her chin and blue eyes, asked, deciding to change the topic.
"My name is Lunamaria Hawke, nice to meet you." Luna answered politely with a small bow.
"You really have it with the ho-ouch." Tolle started but was silenced as Mirallia elbowed him into the ribs.
As they all introduced themselves to one another Sai handed Kira the work the professor had left for him.
While Kira was working Tolle, a boy about the same age and height as him with brown hair that parted in the middle and fell to both sides of his head, a little bit short of his ears, and dull green eyes, managed to sneak behind Kira and lock him in a playful chokehold.
"So who of those two ladies is your girlfriend?" Tolle asked him in a teasing voice.
Lunamaria blushed as she heard that and stomped over to the two boys in order to hide her embarrassment while she pried those two apart.
Or she wanted to, but never got to it since a violent shock rattled the colony and sent her reeling forward, right into the arms of Kira, who managed to stay standing as Tolle fell off him due to the sudden jolt.
The blonde with the cap standing at the door towards the professor's office had completely escaped his notice up until now.
Heliopolis, Starport
A few minutes before the start of the shuttle the pilot announced that they were having trouble with the engines and therefore would have to wait until they had found the problem and knew how long it took to solve it. With Kira and Luna already gone she had no intention of going back into the city, so she just relaxed into her seat and closed her eyes, planning how she could surprise him the next time she visited.
After a while her thoughts started drifting to a matter she was thinking about for a long time now, namely her relationship with Kira.
She liked him, a lot, and she was sure her father had also noticed, which brought her to the only thing that stopped her from tackling Kira to the ground and kissing him senseless.
That thought alone brought a big smile to her face, as well as a blush nearly as deep as her cousin's hair color.
Back to the topic she was thinking about a moment ago, she somehow knew without a doubt that Kira felt exactly the same way, even if he hid it very well or just didn't realize it. Both were pretty realistic scenarios.
Athrun, and her arranged engagement to him, was really the only thing that kept her from confessing. And not because she loved him, it was because she didn't want to hurt her father.
Her thoughts were going on and on about that, until a purple haired woman wearing a black sleeveless dress sat down in the seat next to her.
"Thinking about your boyfriend?" the woman asked jokingly.
Truth be told, the smile and blush still present on the rosette's face pretty much gave it away.
"He is not… well, you could say he is pretty close to it." Lacus replied shyly, looking at the newcomer for the first time.
"Sounds like neither of you made the first step yet." Cortana continued while leaning back.
"It isn't exactly easy… " Lacus started but was interrupted as the whole colony shook violently.
Heliopolis, 37th factory district
A familiar feeling in the back of his head alerted Rusty, a boy around 16 years old with orange hair reaching almost down to his chin and blue eyes, to the presence of someone he hadn't met in a long time. The last time he felt like that was just after their graduation as they were introduced to their new commander and squad mates. He had never found out where she had disappeared to, or why for that matter. The only he was sure of was that she had left ZAFT but he couldn't find out anything more than that, no matter what he did.
"Why the hell is she here of all places right now?" he muttered into his helmet.
"What are you talking about?" Athrun, who was right next to him, asked confused as he didn't quite get what his friend had muttered.
"It's nothing." Rusty dismissed. "We should be going, right?"
"Hey guys!" Yzak shouted. "I don't want to disturb you, but if we don't get going we will miss the transports."
With this the silver haired boy pointed towards a trail of trucks and small military vehicles moving along the road beneath them. With a nod each of them readied their weapons. With everyone finished, Dearka contacted the mobile suits and sent them their location. A minute later two GINNs soared over the convoy firing on, and destroying, the escort consisting of a few mobile missile launchers. Soaring down with guns blazing they overwhelmed the surprised soldiers and armed factory workers and secured the three prototypes without much difficulties.
"It looks like the last suits are still inside the hangar." Athrun stated the obvious.
"Then Athrun and I will go and get the last two." Rusty responded immediately.
"You take these suits out to the Vesalius, we'll cover them." Miguel's voice came over the radio.
"Yeah, yeah. Don't die you two." Yzak answered.
With that Dearka, a boy of the same age and height as Rusty, dark skin, short, blond hair and purple eyes, Nicol, a boy of 15 years with short green hair and brown eyes, and Yzak boarded the three captured machines as the other two went on to the factory district where the last two remaining prototypes were supposed to be.
A few minutes later the Duel, Buster and Blitz took off.
As Rusty and Athrun arrived at Morgenroete they realized that they had a serious problem. First, they met a fierce resistance from the remaining Earth Forces personal and factory workers that were still alive. Second, instead of two mobile suits there were four, which meant that their information wasn't as accurate as their commander said it was.
Athrun gunned down two soldiers with more bullets than actually needed and took out two more with his last grenade only to duck back behind his cover, a crate which supposedly carried some additional equipment for one, or more, of the machines still in the warehouse they were currently in.
"Rusty, get over there!" Athrun shouted pointing towards a now open path to one of the suits.
"Roger." Rusty replied shortly and started running, gunning down two officers at the feet of one of the other mobile suits, using up the last clip he had for his assault rifle.
Heliopolis, Morgenroete, Professor Kato's Laboratory
As he grabbed Lunamaria's hand and made for the door, his friends were asking if an asteroid had hit the colony and wondered why the administration hadn't issued a warning beforehand.
Kira had a suspicion of what could be happening but he was praying that he was wrong and that what his gut feeling was telling him was just a reaction to what he ate for lunch.
Right as they got to the elevators the power failed, not that he was going to use any kind of elevator except those leading to one of the shelters in this kind of situation, and Sai proceeded to open the door to the staircase right next to the elevator doors.
"What's going on? Was the colony hit by an asteroid?" Sai asked the people running past them, not caring which one of them answered, as long as he got one.
"I don't know." answered one of them as he hurried up the stairs.
"ZAFT is attacking Heliopolis, there are mobile suits inside the colony." said the next one, actually stopping to answer the question asked by the bespectacled teen.
"No way, we're a neutral colony." Sai gasped in shock.
"Hey where are you going?" Kira asked the blond newcomer, who was currently on his way away from the staircase and back into the corridor they had just come from.
Kira took off after him without even waiting for his friends to reply, letting go of Luna's hand in the process. Sai and Miriallia called out after him, but he didn't listen as the building, and probably the whole colony shook once again.
Luna decided to chase after him, yelling over her shoulder that she'd get him back right as she was rounding a corner.
As Kira, and Luna a moment later, caught up to the blond visitor an explosion caused the ceiling behind them to collapse, the gust of wind rushing past them as a result blew the hat off the blonds head.
"You're a girl?" Kira asked while Lunamaria had the almost irresistible urge to smack her palm against her forehead.
"What did you think I was?" the girl in question responded angrily. "I need to check up on something. You should go back!"
"The way back has just collapsed." Luna retorted out of breath and a little bit annoyed at the tone their visitor used.
"This way, there is a shelter over there." Kira grabbed the blondes and Luna's hand and started running towards the exit.
Once out there they saw something that made their breath stock. Four mobile suits of a completely new design and soldiers fighting all around them. The blonde fell to her knees as she saw what happened down in the warehouse.
"Father you betrayed us all!"
That cry drew the attention of a brown haired woman on top of one of the mobile suits, who instantly shot a few bullets in her direction that pinged harmlessly of off the rail.
Kira grabbed the blondes arm, pulled her up and dragged her over to the shelter entrance with Luna right behind him. After a quick talk with the inhabitants it was clear that there was only one place left inside. Without much thinking he pushed the blonde inside the elevator.
"Hey, what are you doing." the blonde protested.
"Saving your life." Luna replied instead of Kira and shoved her inside while Kira pushed the button to close the door.
"We'll head to the shelters in the east block." Kira stated and started running with Luna hot on his heels.
Heliopolis airspace
Outside of Heliopolis the battle was still raging.
Only a lonely Moebius Zero and a Mistral were the only mobile armors left.
Mu La Flaga, a blond mobile armor pilot in his late twenties, pulled his Zero to the right to avoid the sword strike of a mobile suit that resembled a black samurai. As he passed the mobile suit he saw that the last Mistral was cleaved in two by a CGUE, Le Creusets CGUE.
However much he wanted to shoot down his nemesis, he just couldn't get away from this damned black samurai that was constantly on his tail, no matter what kind of crazy twists and turns he performed with his Moebius Zero.
All of a sudden a gigantic shadow appeared in front of the sun and disappeared with a flash a few moments after. The only thing that remained to testament that the mysterious object had ever been there, were four shadows that moved with a velocity that no mobile suit or mobile armor Mu knew of had ever achieved. And they were all emitting what seemed to be particles of light, which scrambled his communication systems, not that he had anyone he could contact after the cruiser he came on was shot down by one of the GINNs.
"To all ZAFT forces: I hereby order you, under the authority granted to me by the Orb union, cease all combat activity in the area and leave at once." a metallic sounding voice stated over an open frequency that, strangely enough, wasn't jammed through either the ZAFT warships or whatever system those mobile suits used.
The first response, if you could even call it a response, came from the black samurai, who threw two knives directly at the incoming mobile suits. Surprised by the sudden attack the knives embedded themselves into the cockpits of two mobile suits, crushing the pilots with their sheer mass alone but leaving the mobile suits intact.
Mu guessed that the pilot of that black machine was intent on capturing them.
"Haley!" the pilot of one of the mobile suits screamed.
His mobile suit was obviously equipped for close combat. The pilot charged forward in blind rage as he found one of the samurai's katana impaling the cockpit before he could even manage to draw one of his weapons.
By luck, or skill, the blade missed any vital systems, leaving the mobile suit drifting through space uncontrolled.
"I take that as a no." the last remaining pilot replied, his voice cold as ice.
Even through the voice filter one could hear the unbound rage that laid in his voice.
"I will now begin to dispatch the targets in order to save the colony."
With that the last mobile suit, the most prominent color a brilliant white, while the joints were colored black and wings like an angel sprouting from its back, rushed forward and smashed its shield into the black samurais torso, effectively knocking the suit away and giving Mu the freedom to pursue Le Creuset, who had used the distraction to enter the colony.
On the way through the outer hull of Heliopolis Mu finally managed to catch up to Le Creuset.
While in the tight corridors of the colony Mu was clearly at a disadvantage because he needed a lot of space to deploy the gun barrels of his Moebius Zero in order to fight his enemy efficiently. Not to mention that Le Creuset managed to surprise him by suddenly speeding out from behind one of the shafts and shooting his rifle at him, effectively destroying two of his weapon pods.
Mu ejected them instantly in order to avoid any damage to his mobile armor from the resulting explosions.
The next gun barrel got cut in half as he had to evade a slash from the CGUEs sword. Using the explosion of the ejected barrel as cover, Mu turned his machine around to face his adversary and deployed the last of his barrels and let loose with everything he had.
He managed to destroy the vulcan guns mounted on the shield of the CGUE before Le Creuset shot down the last barrel and Mu was left only with the linear cannon mounted to the main body of his mobile armor.
After that Le Creuset decided to mostly ignore his nemesis and proceeded to blow a hole into the walls of the colony shaft they were in and move on into the interior to do who-knows-what.
Mu just hoped that the prototypes had made it out unscathed.
Little did he know that most of them had already been taken.
Heliopolis, Morgenroete, Warehouse 52
The last green coat had been shot down as Athrun started to run up to one of the mobile suits, gunning down the last two soldiers by its feet. He shot a female officer in the shoulder as she was about to draw her sidearm and jumped up to the cockpit hatch after his rifle jammed and left him only with his knife.
He drew it from the sheath on his shoulder mid jump and was about half way towards his opponent as he saw a brunette teen, the guy couldn't be any older than himself judging from his looks, jumping down from the walkway onto the shoulder of the mobile suit he was trying to capture. The teen stumbled forward and finally came to a stop next to the woman before he looked up at him.
"Kira?" he asked, perplexed as to why his childhood friend had appeared in front of him in a situation like this.
"Athrun?" Kira asked back as he noticed the voice and face of his old friend behind the helmet of the pilot suit.
Lunamaria was just about to follow Kira down onto the mobile suit as another explosion rocked the building and the walkway collapsed beneath her, dragging her down with it closer to the last unoccupied machine than the one her friend was on.
She really wanted to run over to Kira and stay close to him but the rapidly spreading fire and the explosions occurring more frequently all over the warehouse led her to the decision to jump into the safety of the cockpit of the mobile suit she was closest to in order to survive.
Luna could only hope that Kira managed to find shelter in the other mobile suit before that ZAFT soldier got to him.
Kira and Athrun just stared at each other in shock, neither of them having expected to meet the other again under circumstances like this, especially with Athrun ready to cut his friends throat until just a few moments ago.
The brunette woman managed to ignore the pain in her right shoulder and leveled her gun at the blue haired ZAFT pilot, using the momentary confusion in her favor to drive him off as he evaded the shots fired at him and made his way over to the next machine he could get to.
Having succeeded in saving her skin, and the boy next to her as well, the woman got up and pushed Kira into the cockpit of the mobile suit.
After closing the hatch to shield them from the explosions tearing through the building she started to boot up the systems of the machine in order to move it out of the warehouse, all the while mumbling about not letting ZAFT capture all of the prototypes.
A short while later three mobile suits, or Gundams, as the start up screen suggested, stood up amidst the destruction raging through the building.
Two of them moving somewhat fluidly while the third one was stumbling out of the burning building.
"So you two got out safely, hurry and get back to the Vesalius. We have some unexpected visitors." Miguel's voice came over the radio.
"The last two machines have been boarded by Earth Forces personal." Athrun said over the radio, assuming the redhead he had seen boarding the last machine to also be of the Earth forces.
"I'll take care of those two, you two get those suits out of here." Miguel said as he turned his GINN and rushed towards the Gundams Kira was currently in.
He would see what happened to the other machine after he took care of the one right in front of him.
Kira looked at the pathetic attempts of the female soldier to move the mobile suit forwards and not to trip over. All the while several windows of zoomed in images popped up on the screens, showing seemingly random points of interest.
One of the windows showed Sai, Miriallia and Tolle running away from the mobile suits while another focused on the two GINNs approaching the three mobile suits that just got out of the factory.
Luckily one of the GINNs turned around and followed the two stolen units out of the colony to escort them, leaving the two brunettes with only one opponent.
The ZAFT mobile suit took aim and shot a few rounds at the ground right next to the Gundam's feet, the resulting explosions making it stumble backwards and almost trip over.
To Kira's horror one of the rounds exploded dangerously close to where his friends were trying to hide from the fighting.
He then and now made the decision to fight the GINN off with the Gundam he had been involuntarily shoved into.
"Move out of the seat!" Kira yelled at the woman, trying to be louder than the explosions around them.
"But you…" she started but didn't finish her sentence as she saw the ID card Kira held in front of her face.
"…are more qualified for this task than you are." Kira finished for her, shoving the card back into his pocket and got into the pilot seat as the brunette vacated the seat to move behind it.
He didn't like how he had treated the woman just now but as long as he could save his friends, and her as well, he could always apologize later.
He had just pulled down the keyboard to examine the state of the OS as the GINNs pilot put away his suits rifle and drew his sword instead. He wasn't sure if he could dodge the blade as the woman reached forward and punched a button labeled with the words 'Phase Shift'.
He was stunned as the sword did nothing but push their mobile suit back into the building behind them.
The ZAFT pilot was probably as stunned as Kira since his suit took a step back as his attack was deflected, leaving not even a scratch on the prototype's armor. Recovering quickly, Kira examined the OS and cursed before he started to rewrite the OS to at least resemble a somewhat functional one so that he could fight off the GINN without having to worry about tripping every second step.
"What are you doing?" the woman asked, amazed at how fast his fingers flew over the keyboard.
"Rewriting your basically non-existent operating system."
"It was still in the testing stage…" she tried to apologize but noticed that the boy probably didn't pay much attention to her right now, not that she could blame him for that.
Kira watched the GINN out of the corner of his vision as he continued to type away rapidly and just barely noticed the enemy pilot switch back to the rifle and aim at him.
He pushed the keyboard to the side and punched the thrusters up to maximum in order to take the fight to the enemy, away from his friends.
Miguel was quite surprised as the machine suddenly leapt towards him after it had turned from a dull grey to a dark green and blue and deflected the sword of GINN.
The punch the strange machine threw at his mobile suits head was way more accurate and fluid than the motions of the machine as it stumbled out of the, now almost completely collapsed, warehouse.
Sitting his machine back up after the punch had sent him down onto his back he tried to take aim again but the machine guns in the head of his enemy's machine riddled it with bullets and he had to toss it away in order to avoid further damage to his mobile suit.
The rifle exploded just before it hit a building behind him.
As he finally got up again he drew his sword and charged full speed at the green prototype in front of him.
Kira had been checking the weapons equipped on the Gundam as the GINN got up and decided to use its sword again.
Activating an experimental system he stumbled across while rewriting the OS he caught the blade between the palms of his machine as one of the previously unused status screens flashed to life, displaying some form of energy and temperature readings.
H.A.L.O. system activated.